


Triple Connection

by cutthroatpixie



Series: Six in One verse [13]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Multi, OT4, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutthroatpixie/pseuds/cutthroatpixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short stories about how Antonio came to join Romano and Antonia in their relationship shenanigans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [counterheist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/gifts).



> This was originally supposed to be an actual, cohesive story à la Six in One, but that never ended up happening. Instead I'm going to post the snippets I have as short stories and leave you with the hope that maybe someday there will be more. Two years after I post the last short story, possibly. 
> 
> In other news, thanks to everyone who has ever read this AU and liked it! Whether you read Six in One when I posted it back in January 2012 and followed it as I posted or you just marathoned everything yesterday, I appreciate it :)

The first thing Antonio ever said to Romano was _lo swEt CHECKS wits cockin?_

The first thing Romano ever said to Antonio, immediately following that, was _Who the fuck is this, are you texting with your ass?_

A response didn't come within a few minutes and Romano assumed whatever dumbass was sending bizarre messages to the wrong number had figured their shit out, but half an hour later _srY ROman tey dard me!!''_ came through and Romano, hoping it was just his girlfriend or his brother texting him after consuming insane amounts of alcohol, shoved his homework aside and called the number. If it wasn't somebody who he actually knew, he could always chew them out without having to decipher their stupidity. 

"Hello?"

Shit.

It wasn't somebody Romano knew.

The line was silent for a moment before he decided to return to his original question. "Who the fuck is this?!" 

Static answered him and Romano thought whoever it was had hung up on him, but then that same, decidedly too manly to be either Antonia or Veneziano, voice answered him with a laugh and a, "Oh, I'm Antonio! Nice to meet you, Romano!" 

"Nice to... w-what? I don't know you!" His mom walked by the door, giving him an odd look as she did so, and Romano quickly lowered his voice. "Seriously, who is this? Why do you have my number?" 

A very familiar giggle rang faintly through the receiver, but Romano didn't have too much time to dwell on it because this Antonio person had apparently figured out how to carry on a conversation without odd pauses. "I'm Antonia's friend, in Madrid? Francine thought it would be funny if I texted that to you, I'm sorry! But I won truth or dare, so thanks!"

Romano heard that giggle again and, "Wait. Are you getting drunk with my girlfriend? You fucker, I'm going to drive up there and kick your fucking ass, who the fuck do you think you ar–" 

"No no no, it's okay! I know she's your girlfriend, she showed me pictures of you two, and you’re really cute together!" Romano hated those pictures. "Francine's here too, we're all at a party. Don't worry, we'll make sure Antonia gets back to her dorm okay." 

Romano scowled and shut the door when his (apparently back from wherever the hell he'd been) brother tried to walk in and ask what he was doing. "Fine, whatever. Don't call me again." 

"You called me." 

"...You can't win truth or dare, asshole. Make sure Antonia drinks some water, she's really whiny when she's hungover."

Romano hung up, making a mental note to call Antonia in the morning, not to check on her, but because he knew the ringtone she had for him on her cellphone was obnoxiously loud.


	2. Chapter 2

Antonio didn't magically forget Romano's number, delete it from his phone, or stop texting Romano like a normal person might have after that first conversation, and Romano soon discovered that even when sober, Antonio's texting was a pain in the ass to read.

"Antonia," Romano said, sighing into the mouthpiece of his phone. "Stop giving your stupid friends my number. Antonio won't stop texting me, Francine keeps sending me pictures of bras, and some girl named Edmée messaged me last night asking why I was so cute?"

Antonia just laughed, because obviously Antonia was not at all disturbed by the fact that all these strangers (okay, Francine wasn't a stranger, but she was still strange) were texting Romano at all hours of the day when they should have been sleeping or going to class or otherwise not bothering Romano. "Edmée is Antonio's sister! She visited him the other day."

"That explains everything, I'm completely okay with getting all these weird messages now," Romano deadpanned. 

Antonia hummed into the receiver and Romano listened as she shifted around, no doubt sprawling herself across a bed or a chair to get more comfortable. "Mm, my Roma is so popular, I just don't know what to do with him sometimes."

"They're _your_ friends."

"Who just can't stop talking to you!" 

"Well make them stop... ugh, are you texting me while you're on the phone? Please tell me that is you doing that." His phone buzzed a second time, letting him know that either multiple people were attempting to speak with him or one person didn't understand that they weren't going to get a response after three seconds.

"Nope," Antonia replied. "Not me. So, so popular!"

Romano quickly checked the texts, and what he saw made him groan and wish for a brief second that he was dating a normal girl who did normal girl things like _not give his number out to random people he didn't know _.__

__"Antonio and Francine have apparently teamed up and sent me a picture of two tomatoes in a bra. Your bra. Antonia."_ _

__"Oh, hm?" Antonia paused, as if waiting for Romano to repeat himself and he almost did, but then she charged on. "I know, isn't it so funny? We're all in Antonio's room right now, my roommate is really gross Roma, did I tell you about her? She's so mean and she keeps kicking us all out and she drank all my juice and she snores and she's so grumpy, Roma, really, really grumpy–"_ _

__"Mhmm."_ _

__"–and I told her, you know, that I have the cutest boyfriend ever and she just rolled her eyes and told me to shut up and I showed her a picture of you and she said you weren't cute!"_ _

__"Right."_ _

__"And it was awful, she's such a dirty liar, who wouldn't think my Roma was cute?"_ _

__"No idea, Antonia."_ _

__"And then she said Francine couldn't have a sleepover with us but we did it anyway and she stole our wine and hid it!"_ _

__"Did she now."_ _

__"It was a really nice bottle, too, Francine picked out and you know how good she is at picking out nice wines. Roma, you come be my roommate instead, okay?"_ _

__Romano rolled his eyes, knowing completely that if he had done that in person Antonia would start going on about how uncute he was, despite her previous upset over another person saying the exact same thing. "Doesn't Francine have an apartment? Go stay with her and stop complaining about stupid shit."_ _

__"It's not stupid! Romano, did I tell you how mean she was?"_ _

__Romano tried to say that yes, Antonia had already told him that, and yes, he did get the fifteenth text Antonio had just sent him and he didn't need any more of them, Antonia no, but Antonia never really did listen to him._ _


	3. Chapter 3

Romano was bored out of his mind. It was a Saturday night and he was out wandering the streets near his house, without a destination in mind. Normally, he'd just lazily make his way next door to Antonia's house, but obviously Antonia wasn't there. If he got really desperate he could always pay her mother a visit, because Antonia's mother loved him, but right then he didn't really feel like it.

He kicked at a rock on the sidewalk and checked his phone for any stray messages that might have come in. Just in case, because he hated it when his inbox got clogged up with idiots.

_get online roma!_

"Hmph. As if I can just get on whenever she needs me to," he mumbled to himself, quickly turning around back in the direction of his house.

_don't tell me what to do_

He did what he was told nonetheless, hurrying back down the aimless path he'd taken to nowhere, stopping only briefly when his grandfather asked him where the fire was. 

"You're hilarious, Nonno." He tried to slink away to his room, who knew how long Antonia would actually be on and able to talk, but Nonno was having none of it 

"Of course, everyone always laughs at Nonno's jokes!" Nonno was blocking the entrance to his room, to his stupid dinky laptop with the stupid tomato sticker that his stupid girlfriend had put on it a year ago. "What are you doing in on a Saturday night, hm? When I was your age, I was always–"

" _Nonno_ ," Romano whined. Didn't whine. He was annoyed. "I have to talk to Antonia, fuck off. Nobody wants to hear anymore of your "youthful stories", they all just end in you having sex."

Never one to take any offense to his grandson's foul moods or vulgar language, Romano's grandfather just laughed and patted him heartily on the shoulder. "That's my boy," he said, reaching up to wipe a tear from his eye. "You go talk to your girl, I'll guard the door."

"Nonno. No. Go away."

"It's okay, our little secret, if Nonno hears anything unsavoury, nobody else has to know."

Romano punched him in the shoulder and scowled, earning nothing more than another chuckle, though when Romano finally retreated into his room, he thankfully heard the sounds of footsteps letting him know his creep of a grandfather wasn't actually going to wait outside the door and "guard" it while he talked to Antonia.

After some minor technical difficulties and a few more checks to make sure nobody was listening in on him (his family was so goddamned nosy like that), Romano was finally “face to face” with Antonia for the first time in weeks. He was sitting in a creaky desk chair and she was obviously in the cafeteria at her school, but it was good enough.

“Hi Romano!” Romano flinched as she yelled into the microphone and he turned his volume down a few notches. “How are you doing? I miss you! Your face is even cuter than the last time I saw it, I swear.”

“Oh well now you have to let me see, I didn’t think Romano could get any cuter.”

Great.

“Ooh, Francine move, I want to see Romano!”

Fucking great.

“Antonio, I’m guessing?” he said when the tanned face of a man he’d never seen before appeared next to Antonia’s. He ignored the glimpse of blonde hair and the, “Not fair,” coming from somewhere to Antonia’s left.

Antonio nodded and waved enthusiastically at him, grinning from ear to ear. “That’s me! It’s nice to meet you, Antonia talks about you all the time. Well I’ve kinda met you, but only in the texts and you don’t even respond to most of those.” 

“I don’t normally text strange men, no.”

Antonio held up his hand, as if to shake with Romano, only that was entirely ridiculous because you couldn’t shake hands through a computer screen. Romano just stared when Antonio didn’t put his hand down. “Well I’m Antonio, and you’re Romano, so now we’re all properly introduced.” 

“We’re not.”

“We will be when you shake on it!”

Romano refused to “shake” Antonio’s hand and eventually Antonio just made an exaggerated shaking motion with the still held up hand and tapped the computer screen, for what reason Romano had no idea. “There, now I’m not a stranger.”

Romano continued to stare, Antonio continued to smile, and eventually Antonia broke the silence by laughing and nudging Antonio’s shoulder out of her way. “Romano stop being so rude, you made a new friend, be happy!”

“I did not.”

“You did, you did! I saw it with my own eyes! Aw, I’m so proud, I wish I was there to give you so many kisses!”

Romano rather wished that too.

“I don’t, you’d just get slobber all over my face and then pinch my cheeks for an hour,” he huffed, said cheeks developing a pink tinge when Antonia started making pinching motions as his image on her computer screen. “Stop that, you look ridiculous. Why are you video calling me in the cafeteria, go to your room.”

“You go to my room.”

“Ooh, Antonia’s right, you should come visit!” Antonio cut in. 

Francine snickered. Romano groaned.

“If I come visit I’m not visiting you,” he responded. “You either Francine, stop listening in on the conversation, I’m talking to my girlfriend, not any of you people.” 

Some stray passerby laughed as they heard that snippet of conversation and Romano made a foul gesture at them, though no doubt the only people who saw it were the three right in front of the computer screen. 

Antonia gasped and covered the screen, as if that would keep anyone from having already witnessed the action. “Roma!” she said. “Don’t do that, that’s not very nice at all!”

“You’re not very nice.” Antonia pouted and Romano rolled his eyes. “Fine, you’re plenty nice. But if you want me to come visit some weekend, make sure snoring girl isn’t there or I’m not staying with you.”

“You can stay with—”

“No Francine,” Antonia quickly interrupted. “Come next weekend, can you Roma, please? My roommate won’t be there, and you can come to a party with us all! Won’t that be fun?”

Romano quickly responded with a flat, “No,” though he pulled up a search for train tickets from Valencia to Madrid as he did so.


	4. Chapter 4

Almost as soon as Romano was off his train and into the train station, he was being jumped on by Antonia. Luckily for both them and the crowd of people attempting to get around them, even after a long separation Romano was still fully able to brace himself quickly enough so as to not send himself, Antonia, and his duffel bag flying to the ground. 

Antonia kissed his cheeks over and over again, probably making up for all those "so many kisses" she kept saying she wanted to give him every time they spoke and for a moment Romano just let her do as she pleased, because life was much easier for everyone that way and he was tired after sitting on a train with stuffy businessmen and smelly children for two hours. "I missed you!" she cried, finally releasing him with one last kiss to his nose. "Was your trip nice, are you hungry? How's school going? Did you miss me too?"

"No. Yes. Eh. Sure."

"...What?"

Romano grabbed Antonia's hand and led her away from the gathering crowd, ignoring the fact that he actually had no idea where they were going, or how they were getting from the train station back to the university, but he really didn't care right at the moment. 

"Let's just go find something to ea–" Antonia and Romano reached the exit of the station and Romano cut himself off when he noticed Francine and Antonio standing a few metres away, the latter jumping up and down and pointing when he noticed Antonia and Romano make their appearance. "You brought them with you. Why."

Antonia shrugged and waved back at Antonio, who finally calmed down a bit when he saw he'd been noticed. "Francine's the only one with a car."

"And...?"

"And it's a 25 minute drive, I didn't think you'd want to walk or take the bus, they get really crowded."

Romano probably would have considered punching Antonia just a little if she made him walk, but still. "Doesn't explain the cheerleader."

Antonia looked around, as if trying to find somebody sporting an actual cheerleading outfit, then she looked down at herself, most likely checking to see if she herself had somehow ended up wearing her old uniform, but no actual cheerleader was anywhere to be found. Romano pointed at the still slightly bouncy man outside. "Antonio."

"Oh, he's not a cheerleader, silly Roma."

"I'm really not," Antonio added, and Romano realised he and Francine were close enough to listen in on the conversation, though knowing that fact sooner wouldn't have made him change his mind about complaining. "I don't think I'm flexible enough."

Francine grinned slyly and put an arm around Antonio's shoulder. "Oh, I'm sure you're plenty flexible. Maybe you can show us all later."

Romano coughed and Francine's grin spread wider across her face. "I'm sitting in the back with Antonia," he grumbled, gesturing vaguely in the direction of some cars nearby, since he didn't know which one actually belonged to Francine. She'd had a few different ones in school, and none of the ones in sight looked familiar, so Romano assumed she had a new one yet again. 

"Aw, Antonio got the front seat on the way here too, not fair," Antonia whined, grabbing Romano's elbow and leading him towards a sleek blue car parked further down the road. Antonia's whining ceased when they were all inside the car, Romano situated behind Antonio and right next to Antonia, who insisted on sitting in the middle seat in order to be closer to him. 

"So..." Romano said, glancing out the window as Francine sped off. 

Antonia poked at his side and he jumped, looking horribly offended at the action. "So how's Vene? And Nonno? And your mamma?"

"Not dead."

"Well obviously," Antonia responded, poking him once more. "You'd be horribly sad if they were. How's school?"

"Boring."

"That's because all your friends are here, aw, my poor baby." Antonia's lip jutted out in a pout and she reached out to wrap her arms around Romano's head, something she did quite often when they were together, but Romano never really did get used to the whole not being able to breathe thing when her arms covered his nose and mouth.

"Ack!" He tried to pull out of Antonia's grip, but that only resulted in him banging both her arm and his head against the window, though it did free up his mouth. "Motherfucker. Antonia, are you trying to kill me?"

She pouted and rubbed her arm, pouting even more when Francine glanced back and laughed. 

Antonio flipped on the radio and Romano's ears were assaulted with the sound of godawful Spanish pop. "Here, this'll make you all feel better!"

This was going to be a very, very long weekend.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the fic I was writing stopped being sequential and I just started writing random snippets. The note my past self left above this section was [later, after Romano is already attending uni with them bitches]. Imagine whatever you want happening between the last section and this section. The world is yours!

Romano was fairly certain going to a party with Antonia and her little entourage was a bad idea, a very bad idea, and this fact was further proven when Antonia ran off ten minutes in to help Edmée fix her make up to impress a boy or something (a boy who made Antonio scowl, and that really must have been the first time Romano had ever seen that particular expression cross his face). However, after a couple of Francine's "magic juice" concoctions, Romano really couldn't find it in himself to care about all the kinds of bad all their ideas were.

That was why, when Antonio pulled him into a ring of people playing spin the bottle, he joined right in.

He looked around the circle at the mixture of people he barely knew and people he didn't know at all, and when the giggling girl to his left nudged the bottle in his direction after she took her turn kissing some boy who looked far too old to be attending a university party, Romano spun the bottle, watching it go around and around. He wondered who he wouldn't mind kissing. He'd mind kissing most of the people in that circle, but he'd played the game with Antonia enough to know that she just thought it was funny how embarrassed he got over a quick peck on the lips with somebody who wasn't her. 

The bottle spun around and around, nearly landing on a nervous looking girl next to Antonio but then it didn't.

It landed on Antonio.

Nervous Girl looked relieved, Giggling Girl laughed even more, and Antonio smiled and leaned over the circle. "Hi Romano." 

"Don't you-- mph." It was just a quick peck, an overly chaste hardly-really-a-kiss meeting of their lips, but it was enough, it was more than enough, it was too much. A spark ran down Romano's spine, something awful and wonderful pooled in his stomach, and even though Antonio quickly pulled back and everyone else was laughing and moving on with the game, Romano found himself stumbling up and rushing off from the stupid circle as fast as he could. 

"Romano? Are you feeling sick? I told Francine not to give you so many of those--" 

"No. Fuck off." 

"Do you want to go back to our room? We can go, I'll go find the girls." 

"I said fuck off." 

Antonio looked far too confused, as if he honestly had no idea why Romano was so upset. Romano realised he probably really didn't understand, but that just infuriated him even more. "I don't underst--" 

"Of course you don't. Just leave me alone, I'm going for a walk."

"Are you sure that's--"

"I said," Romano ground out, shoving off the arm Antonio was attempting to reach out in comfort. "Leave me alone."

Romano rushed out of the house, just as fast as he could without falling over. He didn't look back, but he knew if he did, he'd still find that obnoxiously concerned, idiotic face watching him leave.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~more super duper timeskipping shenans~ this part was supposed to be near the end of the originally planned fic and is actually the last thing that I have written soooo this is probably the last chapter of this set of shit but who knows. thanks to everyone who has been reading!

Romano lay down next to Antonia after stealing her shower, glad that her roommate was rarely ever in the room. If Antonia actually got along with the other woman, who knew when Romano would be able to sleep in the same bed as her (the same very small, crowded bed that Antonia insisted she loved because it let her cuddle him more). Considering that Antonio almost always slept in their dorm, and when he didn't it was because the two of them had passed out at somebody else's after a party, it was really a godsend that Antonia and her roommate hated one another so much the girl did everything she could to find other places to spend the night.

A godsend for Antonia, anyway. Romano just spent the night being cramped and having boobs shoved into his face.

"Roma?" 

"Yeah?" 

Romano looked over at Antonia as she snuggled up against him, her chest flush against his side, her nose nudging against his neck. She smiled at him before looking at the ceiling for a moment, then she whispered something that nearly made his heart stop.

"I see the way you look at him, querido." 

Antonia didn't look upset, but Romano didn't like where this was going, and he would have thought about trying to flee the scene if he wasn't frozen in place, stuttering out a, "Wh-what? No I don't... who?" 

She smiled again and kissed his nose. "Antonio. It's like... when you see somebody else eating a really good pizza and you don't have any," she explained.

"I... what? Antonia, that doesn't make sense." 

She shook her head and continued, laughing lightly at the fact that for once she got it and Romano didn't. "It does. You get this look on your face, you always have, when Veneziano had candy and you'd already eaten all yours, or when somebody at school got the new shoes you really wanted."

"What does this have to do with Antonio?" He calmed down a bit, just a bit, though his heartbeat could still be felt strongly beneath Antonia's palm, the fast flutter greeting her when she placed a hand over his heart. 

"Everything," she replied. "You look at him just like that, Roma, I know that look better than anyone."

"Says who?"

"Says me. And Francine. It's why she broke up with me you know. You gave me the same look, and she doesn't know it as well as I do but it's really, really obvious sometimes." Romano tried to protest that whatever this look was she was talking about, it wasn't one he "gave" her, it had to be something he still was still giving her, because she was wrong, he wasn't looking at other people. "Romano? Romano are you okay?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I... shit, Antonia. Shit."

She kissed him, full on, not a teasing peck or a succession of kisses that avoided his mouth entirely like she had a love of doing at times. Antonia kissed Romano and it didn't taste bitter, it wasn't a goodbye kiss, it was a strong, passionate kiss, with a hint of a smile, and when it was over that smile was still there in full force as Antonia pushed some hair behind his ear and told him he had nothing to be sorry for. "It's okay that you look at him," she reassured. "I look at him too. But it's not keeping us from still looking at each other, so it's fine, Roma."

"How is it okay?"

Antonia looped her fingers through Romano's. "Because now we can look at him together! And... he can look at us. He does. Francine says so."

"You need to stop talking to Francine."

"Roma, even I can see you staring at Antonio's ass, I think everyone sees that."

Romano blushed a deep red and pouted as Antonia began to laugh at him, but somehow, someway, that stupid comment made everything seem less horrifying than it had before.


End file.
